The controlled attenuation or amplification of electromagnetic waves has many uses. For example, intelligence may be conveyed along a wave by attenuating and/or amplifying (“modifying”) electromagnetic wave characteristics, such as is seen when modulating amplitude, frequency or phase of an electrical current or radio frequency (RF) wave to transmit data. As another example, power may be conveyed along a wave in a controlled fashion by attenuating and/or amplifying electromagnetic wave characteristics, such as is seen when modulating voltage or current in a circuit. Moreover, the uses may be combined, such as when intelligence may be conveyed through a wave by modifying power characteristics.
Electromagnetic wave characteristic modification may be accomplished through digital or analog techniques. For instance, a wave may be switched off, and thus the wave attenuated completely; the voltage of a wave may be increased, such as by a factor of 1.5, and thus the wave regulated; etc. Digital and analog attenuation and/or amplification may also be combined, that is, the same wave may be subject to various types of digital and/or analog attenuation and/or amplification within a system in order to accomplish desired tasks.
Electromagnetic waves have, until fairly recently, been modified using analog techniques, and there had been no attempt to isolate discrete wave characteristics such as current, voltage and the like and modify those characteristics in order to modify the wave itself. Recently, however, wave modification techniques have become digitized, so that characteristics of the wave can be isolated and modified directly in order to achieve a desired result. Digitization has become desirable because it usually provides increased precision and flexibility in wave modification while consuming less power than previous methods.
Using digitization to process electromagnetic wave, such as in the amplification of a wave, has provided improved linearity of the processed wave, while at the same time also improving the efficiency of the process by reducing power consumption. Digitization also allows for the reduction of noise in the processed wave through the use of digital based techniques that are not available in analog processing systems.
Accordingly, it would be helpful to the art of electromagnetic wave modification if apparatus, methods, and articles of manufacture were provided that utilize digital techniques in the processing of electromagnetic waves.